In 47 years of reloading/using an inertial puller, I've neither experienced nor heard any first-hand
account from a known-to-me-source of a mishap. Because of deliberate design of the cup/anvil/case
assembly I find it difficult to believe that a primer could go high order without having been struck
dead center by a pointed object.

(Then again.... three people did pick the megamillions winning numbers the other day.)

A web story went around a few years back that some guy had a round detonate in a puller and send fragments flying, including into his garage ceiling, supposedly because he had used a shell holder instead of the supplied collet to retain the case --- and had photos to 'show it.' (IF it's true the brand of puller would be irrelivant, they're all made the same.)

Maybe it's true but I agree with Mahavey - it's just not possible. In fact, I think the embarrassed dude dreamed up a cover story about what happened to hide some kind of gross operator error. Some well meaning guys then tried to support the possiblity of his claim by supposing maybe the cartridge shifted in the holder and the holder itself hit the primer; I say BS, that doesn't wash because every holder I've ever seen has a milled relief groove that provides additional room even for high primers.

Not that I recommend it to anyone else but I have happily continued to use inertia pullers with shell holders, just as I have since '65.

I've read the same story that wncchester is talking about. I call BS too. I'll admit that I use the shell holders from my Lee hand primer and have never had a case move to where the primer was covered by the shell holder.

Hello, everyone. There have been reports of smokeless..and of course black powders being detonated from shock..the warning in on every can of powder.
I suppose if powder can be ignited this way..an extra sensitive primer could
possibly go off.
There was a write-up about an accident at a regestered bench-rest match in Precision Shooting magazine. It seems a shooter with a new rifle had gottten a cartridge stuck in the chamber..in trying to remove, the extractor tore thru rim. Bolt was removed & rifle held down on bags by friend, while owner used a cleaning rod from muzzle to tap out ctg.
About the third hard wack..ctg. discharged..the tragedy was..his wife was standing several feet behind and in line with chamber..the case hit her in stomach. Even though they got her to hospital in record time..she died on operating table.
The shooter said he was nearly knocked off his feet from the blow..though he did manage to hold onto rod..this was a little 6mm PPC.
No marks..scratches, dings, etc. were found on primer..the theory was the bullet being pushed back violently into case had compressed & ignited powder.

reports of smokeless..and of course black powders being detonated from shock.

A one-data-point experiment to be sure, but back in `82 I had a can of 4198 I somehow found
in the trunk of the car upon arriving at the Range. Later in the afternoon the Range Officer
and I were the only ones left -- so we looked at each other and said -- "let's see...."

We put the full can against the berm at 100 yards and hit it with a 60gr 243Win hollow point
doing about 3,600fps when it went through the can

.....Nothing. Tore the can all up and fertilized the berm, but nothing more.
Not exactly Mythbusters, but at least one data point from 30 years ago.

As to BP going from pure shock, I'd like to hear more as I've heard no documented accounts
in 30 years of NS-SA and other black powder shooting other than when spark was generated
in the process.

Couldn't resist joining the Forum as I just did the impossible - fired a 1943 era German produced 8mm tracer round in a Frankford Arsenal KBP. This was my first attempt at trying to pull the bullet out of a casing and obviously it did not go well.

My neighbor let me borrow his KBP after he tried it on one round successfully. Unfortunately I wasn't there to watch just how "technically complex" this process could be so I watched about 10 vids on Youtube and thought "eh, appears simple enough". Now, I spent 20 years in the Air Force working with bombs ranging from 500lbs to nuclear weapons so I respect explosives and by no means went into this with a cavalier attitude.

I set-up my work area and put a block of 2x4 on the concrete floor in an unfinished part of my basement. I used the correct collet and after tightening the cap snugly was satisfied the round and collet were seated firmly. I gave it about 5 whacks, each increasing in intensity as my confidence grew. After the 5th whack I looked at the chamber and saw the bullet still seated and was thinking ***?? So on the 6th whack I let it have it - not Thor-like, but harder than the others. BANG! A big flash in the chamber of the KBP and smoke squirting out of it everywhere.

So my wife who was three floors up hears the bang and runs downstairs. I'm fixated on the chamber which has a slight glow wondering how I should deal with it and didn't realize my basement was completely filled with smoke. Like a dumb a.. I decide to unscrew the cap to see what happened and then the fun starts - the phosphurus of the tracer bullet starts cooking. The bullet is not completely dislodged from the casing so it starts melting the casing as it sits on the concrete floor. Now I'm starting to panic a little because I was afraid the round might be a slow burner and the tracer flame would ignite the rest of the round. Finally after about 40ish seconds the round extinguished itself and I was able to throw it out on the patio with a pair of pliers.

The KBP is trashed as there was a bunch of fizzling stuff still cooking in it as I wrapped it against the patio to dislodge any remnants of the powder. So tomorrow I will have to buy my neighbor a new KBP and now have the dilemna of what to do with the rest of this belt.

Moral of this story - you can fire a round in the KBP. I don't know why it happened, but it did. Tomorrow morning I'll grab the round from outside and post a pic.

Sorry, but I'm very sceptical of this one.... going to need pics or it didnt happen....

The Phosphorus was melting the casing, but didnt ignite the powder?

Burned for 40 seconds? tracers burn for a few seconds and thats it, being old isnt going to change that.

putting my scepticism aside, Assuming I am wrong and the story is true. (I guess I have been wrong a few times) If it was indeed a white phosphorus tracer as you implied, which is actualy the only way the story could be possible, then using the KBP still didnt "set off" the round.
White Phosphorus burns when it contacts the air, so when the bullet pulled out of the casing enough for the white phosphorus at the base to contact the air inside the puller, it would have started burning, but since there isnt much air in there, it wouldn't be too energetic. Of course, opening it gave it access to all the air it would need. I still dont see how it could have avoided setting off the powder charge though...

Okie-dokie... from now on, all bullet pulling in my Lyman KBP will be done at the end of the driveway near the street, and not in the garage as I was previously doing this. I don't need to be warned twice.

Here's a link to a thread I stuck on another forum with the KB in the KBP that Wncchester's first post refers to. Lead to quite an argument from folks who denied it was possible, but in addition to the photo's of the incident I put several illustrations and photos of my own into replies that show how the correct overlap can occur to set off a high primer with the shell holder. It supports the contention by the fellow who had the accident that it the mechanism required the combination of the shell holder and a cartridge with a high primer.

The experience with the tracer round is interesting. You obviously can't make tracers with an exposed compound that ignites spontaneously in air, as there is air inside the loaded cartridge. However, if the ammo is old, I'll mention there have been pictures of guns destroyed by firing very old surplus ammo. Usually powder just gets weak with age but occasionally it becomes explosive. I know that nitrocellulose can become impact sensitive in the presence of acids, and acid results from breakdown. I know that when nitrocellulose starts to break down in a double-base powder it releases the nitroglycerine it had trapped in its matrix, causing the powder to become oily looking. It would be unusual for such thinly distributed nitro to go off on impact, but it's not theoretically impossible as it, too, is more sensitive in the presence of acids.

In addition, if this was old surplus, the bullet could require a great deal of force to start the pull. Normally you have to seat those a little deeper to break the seal before pulling. Otherwise the force required can be over ten times what a normal bullet pull is.

I have a KBP I pull out to correct the odd individual error, but I don't pull large numbers or old ammo with it. That's what the Hornady Cam-Lock puller is for, and the Cam-Lock doesn't jar anything violently. My military pulls are all done using the Cam-Lock, but not until after they've gone through the seating die to break the seals.

I see that as being back to the "It Cant Happen Under Normal Conditions".

First of all who screws around with tracers? If you have all that bomb experience, wouldn't you know the phosphorous was going to ignite from exposure to air?

and using a shell holder, instead of the factory shell holder that comes with the KBP, is going against the design of the "system".

The moral. If you use a KB as prescribed by the manufacturer, it will work safely. I've pulled 100's of bullets by smacking it hard on my concrete floor. While I'm always concerned, nothing has ever happened.

I just reread the tracer description. Missed before that the bullet was still in the case when it fell on the floor and started burning. So, the bang could only have been the primer going off, for whatever reason and getting the powder to start a slow burn and venting gas out of the flash hole(s). The burning powder is probably what lit the tracer, not air. How could you load tracer rounds outside of an inert atmosphere if exposure to air lit them?

Were the Germans still using mercury fulminate as their non-corrosive primer sensitizer in 1943? That might explain it. Stuff doesn't age well.

Never had a KB with a Kimectic puller ever.. Of course I would never ever use a shell holder with a puller. There's room for the holder to cover a portion of the primed case get a bit of debris in between and a KB could realisticly happen.

I've pulled 100's if not thousands of cartridges over the last 50 years. I've never experienced a problem, but then again I'd also say anything is possible.

I say I've never experienced a problem, I've also never stepped in it walking in the pasture either, mayhap I haven't walked in the pasture long enough or have not pulled enough cartridges apart as of yet either.

Never had a KB with a Kimectic puller ever.. Of course I would never ever use a shell holder with a puller. There's room for the holder to cover a portion of the primed case get a bit of debris in between and a KB could realisticly happen.

First things first - Mike-Mat, regarding your comment about my experience: the phosphorus that makes a bullet a tracer acts exactly like a flare. It requires a spark of some sort (firing of the bullet & explosion of the powder) to ignite it, and then is self sustaining. Until that occurs, it is pyrotechnically safe and contact with air does nothing to initiate it. If this was not the case, trust me my experience would have told me to not mess with this. I have the tracer bullet my neighbor pulled and it was exposed to air until I reinstalled it yesterday (without incident)

I cannot explain what happened. You can see by the pics I've attached that something caused the tracer compound to ignite while the bullet was still seated. In looking at the recovered bullet this morning I see the bullet is still seated (did not dislodge as I previously thought it did) and burned as a result of something in the round detonating.

I am not trying to refute what you guys are saying about the functioning characteristics of the KBP or bullets for that matter - just providing a data point to draw some more information from regarding the discussion on what can, and cannot happen with these pullers with different ammo under normal conditions of use.

I appreciate the comments so far and hope to see a few more as I really want to pull the remaining 100ish rounds I have without fear of blowing myself up

Last thing - Dacaur - this thing was a slow burn and DID burn for around 40 +/- 5ish seconds. I had plenty of time to stand there and stare at it while my wife was panicking that the smoke detectors were going to go off.

You know dude, I wouldn't mess with that, I wouldn't have anything to do with pulling any tracer ammo for any reason! Go to some other source for your needs and keep your EYEs and your FINGERs and your other parts intact.

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